2000
1999 2000 2001 Events * Arthur C. Clarke and Michael Kube-McDowell publish The Trigger. * The 2000 Department of Defense Appropriations Act (P.L. 106-79) gives President premanent authority as of October 1999 to waive sanctions against India and/or Pakistan over their nuclear weapons prolioferation. Iranian government takes a lesson that getting the bomb is powerful fait accompli. * Vaccine trials for viral Chikungunya are conducted but funding for the project is cut and today no vaccine is currently available for this tropical disease. * Giant Sequoias protected with the creation of National Monument. * Nebraska adopts term limits for its unicameral state legislature. * Jordan expells Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leader in exile Ali Sadreddin al-Bayanouni. Britain gives him asylum. * Miss Waldron's Red Colobus (Procolobus badius waldronae) becomes extinct. * Arson attack by rightwing extremists on abortion providers in Florida and Kentucky in April and in new Hampshire in May. Cases remain unsolved. * China's population is 1,267.43 million. Timeline January * January 3-10: Israel and Syria conduct ultimately inconclusive peace talks. * January 4: Alan Greenspan is nominated for a fourth term as U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman. February * February: Operation Merlin, flawed CIA covert action to give flawed nuclear weapons blueprints to Iran. * February 6: Hillary Clinton enters the New York Senate race. * February 12: Darwin Day March * March: U.S. jurist Thomas Buergenthal is elected to a nine year term on the International Court of Justice in the Hague. * March 6: Pre-protest Prayer Vigil in the park across from the Governor's Manshion in Tallahassee, Florida. * March 7: Between 11,000 and 50,000 march in protest against vote suppression in Tallahassee, Florida. * March 10: The technology-laden NASDAQ stock market index hits its all-time peak of 5,048.60. * March 26: Vladimir Putin is elected President of Russia. April * April 5: Yoshiro Mori replaces Keizo Obuchi as Prime Minister of Japan. * April 25: Vermont legislators pass and Governor Howard Dean signs HB847 establishing civil unions. May * May 15: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak fulfills campaign pledge and withdraws the Israeli army from southern Lebanon. Uses puppet South lebanese Army (SLA) as surrogates in the Israeli version of the Nixon Doctrine. * May 29: Commodore Frank Bainimarama declares himself head of an Interim Military Government of Fiji and declares martial law. June * June 10: Syrian President Hafez al-Assad dies of a heart attack. July * July 1: Vermont begins offering same-sex couples civil unions. * July 17: Bashar al-Assad becomes President of Syria. August * August 8: Al Gore selects Joe Lieberman to be his running mate, the first Jewish American on a major party ticket. September * September 12: The parliament of the Netherlands approves legislation allowing same-sex couples to marry. October * October 6: Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic resigns. The Yugoslav Constitutional Court recognizes Vojislav Kostunica as the winner of the recent presidential election. * October 7: Al-Qaeda suicide skiff attack on the U.S.S. Cole in Aden disables the ship and kills 17 American sailors. Occurs one year after the failed attack on the U.S.S. Sullivan in Yemen. November * November 7: Election Day. Though Al Gore and Joe Lieberman win the popular vote, due to voting irregularities, Florida's electoral college votes remain undecided and the presidency hinges upon who gets them. Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected to the United States Senate, becoming the first First Lady of the United States to win public office. December * December 12: The Supreme Court rules on Bush v. Gore, halting final vote counting in Florida. * December 13: Vice President Al Gore delivers graceful and powerful concession speech. * Decmebr 31: President Bill Clinton signs the Rome Statute that creates the International Criminal Court.